Health & Care - Are They 2 Seperate Thoughts?

I paid a visit to my uncle today. He is in a nursing home which is serving as a re-hab center following two recent surgeries to replace his twenty year old pace maker. My uncle will be 97 years of age in a few weeks. He is brilliant and witty and wanting to go home.

I have written about him before. He has been an extremely successful entrepreneur and community leader. Recently, he offered an opinion on people who resisted change in the workplace, saying that in business, "change makes people aware of you".

Today, my uncle seemed a bit weary of the now seven week stay in one facility or another. What's really troubling -- is that he has done quite well with his two, very detailed surgeries. It's the travel from one facility to another for the follow-up needs that have been difficult. And its the waiting, based on one doctor's schedule, for one piece of awkward equipment to be removed that is taking its toll.

My uncle waits. The staff waits and the family becomes more frustrated for this one moment of aggregated understanding to approve a simple action that will give him some relief.

Sometimes, it seems as if the intelligence we have built inhibits the very objective of our expertise and our skills.

It's as if my uncle's health and his care are two separate entities right now, caught in an overcomplicated health care system.

The irony is that in his "local" hospital his name is on the wall because he helped contribute to building that institution. Of course, he was concerned when he was first told that he would need to go to a much larger hospital for surgery. However, when I visited him in the more complex hospital , I marveled at how the medical team had managed to maintain his comfort level and intimacy of treatment. It was testimony to their professionalism and their core values.

But now, valuable time and patience (his and his family's) have been lost, mostly due to schedules and additional transportation. One has to wonder what causes these unfortunate hold-ups.

In an earlier blog, I wrote about the simple truth that we can get information for any part of any automobile faster than we can get information about medical records in most cases.

While there are reasons to argue for this medical gap, information and implementation go together in health care.

Old schematics for how to organize hospital patient treatment are based on doctor's schedules and shared cost structures between the hospital and the doctor.

These agreements are long overdue for re-structure. Of course, this is only a single thread in a complicated story. However, it did not look so complicated this afternoon.

PS: Later this morning, I hope to call my long time friend and mentor in the UK, who is bravely traveling and continuing to work while in need of some serious orthopedic surgery. She is waiting in the U.K. health care system to be told when she can have the operation.

Sound familiar to a family experience in your life? Welcome your comments.

Sal

2 Interesting Health Care Stories In One Day

Microsoft Offers System to Track Health Records – NY Times 10-5-07

Microsoft is starting its long-anticipated drive into the consumer health care market by offering free personal health records on the Web and pursuing a strategy that borrows from the company’s successful formula in personal computer software.

Microsoft announced HealthVault, an online platform where personal electronic health records can be stored.

The platform allows patients to share medical information with doctors and hospitals.

The venture by Microsoft, which is called HealthVault and was announced yesterday in Washington, comes after two years spent building a team, expertise and technology. In recent months, Microsoft managers have met with many potential partners, including hospitals, disease-prevention organizations and health care companies.

The organizations that have signed up for HealthVault projects with Microsoft include the American Heart Association, Johnson & Johnson LifeScan, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the Mayo Clinic and MedStar Health, a network of seven hospitals in the Baltimore-Washington region. The partner strategy is a page from Microsoft’s old playbook. To make its operating system, Windows, the dominant platform for personal computers, Microsoft persuaded other companies to build on its technology, and it helped them do it.

“The value of what we’re doing will go up rapidly as we get more partners,” said Peter Neupert, the vice president in charge of Microsoft’s health group.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/technology/05soft.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1191557955-tS2/OkL+ExNjTfcQu/x47A

More Doctors in Texas After Malpractice Caps – NY Times Oct. 5, 2007

Four years after Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, doctors are responding as supporters predicted, arriving from all parts of the country to swell the ranks of specialists at Texas hospitals and bring professional health care to some long-underserved rural areas.

The influx, raising the state’s abysmally low ranking in physicians per capita, has flooded the medical board’s offices in Austin with applications for licenses, close to 2,500 at last count.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/05/us/05doctors.html?hp

I have been away for a while working on a health care project and frankly, thinking a great deal about what we can really do to help one another in our workplace.

Please feel free to comment.

Sal

Someone of Age to Influence The Future Workplace

An 80-Year-Old Poet for the MTV Generation


By MELENA RYZIK
Published: August 27, 2007

MtvU, the subsidiary of MTV Networks that is broadcast only on college campuses, will announce today that it has selected its first poet laureate. No, he doesn’t rap. And it’s not Bob Dylan, or even Justin Timberlake.


It is John Ashbery, the prolific 80-year-old poet and frequent award winner known for his dense, postmodern style and playful language. One of the most celebrated living poets, Mr. Ashbery has won MacArthur Foundation and Guggenheim fellowships and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.”

Excerpts of his poems will appear in 18 short promotional spots — like commercials for verse — on the channel and its Web site (mtvu.com, which will also feature the full text of the poems). In another first, mtvU will help sponsor a poetry contest for college students. The winner, chosen by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa, will have a book published next year by HarperCollins as part of the National Poetry Series.

“We hope that we’ll help discover the next great poet that we’ll be talking about for years to come,” said Stephen K. Friedman, the general manager of mtvU, which broadcasts at 750 campuses nationwide.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/27/books/27laur.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Mistakes to Learn From - Datability Minus Ego

Just a few years ago, it would have been astonishing for a foundation, particularly one as traditional as Carnegie, to publicize a failure. Today, though, many of the nation’s largest foundations regard disclosing and analyzing their failures as bordering on a moral obligation.

“There’s an increasing recognition among foundation leaders that not to be public about failures is essentially indefensible,” said Phil Buchanan, the executive director of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which advises foundations. “If something didn’t work, it is incumbent upon you to make sure others don’t make the same mistake.”

New York Times, July 25, 2007 Foundations Find Benefits in Facing Up to Failures
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/us/26foundation.html

Foundations seem to be making advances lately that other organizations have talked about but not really enacted.

Have you seen instances of collaborative behaviors, changes in jurisdictional attitudes or organizational transformations that are putting foundations in the avant of accelerating cultural shifts?

If so, please join in.

Sal

Near Misses

"If the airspace is totally under the control of the air traffic controller, there is a tremendous sense that Big Brother is watching on radar and that the pilot doesn't really have to look out the window."

The problem for pilots is that as they approach major airports, they must concentrate on the controllers' signals, diverting their visual attention from the skies. Concludes the report, in a considerable understatement: "A way must be found to resolve this very real dilemma." - Charles Spence, spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association

Time Magazine, July 2007
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,916714,00.html?promoid=googlep

The article in Time is called Sky Jams. The reference from Charles Spence dates back to 1979.

Here's my point. Business travel is a concern for all of us and the recently reported "near misses" at congested airports have revealed a complicated set of issues.

Infrastructure, long out dated computer tracking technology and lack of appropriate investment are key components to near misses.

Taking a breath from the reality of this situation, it becomes obvious that the overall metaphor for business practices in M&A situations, innovation initiatives and cultural accelerations may indeed, suffer the same set up for near misses.

Human interaction often comes into play at the last moment to counter the loss of updated measurement criteria, communication realities and networking abilities.

Just as the pilots have to look to the "controller's signals" and not out the window at what really exists -- is it possible that we have created the foundation for people in position to routinely make decisions without a clear picture of what they are facing?

Near misses. Has this become an accepted way of doing business rather than taking the time and money to update what is needed to be able to view a genuine current state?

At this point, the technology and the human interaction are more than available for the update.

Sal

Two Helpful Perspectives on Network Realities

Patti Anklam has just published Net Works A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World.

I have worked with Patti and have learned a great deal from her. The title is an honest description of what her committed work offers.

Another associate, Bruce Hoppe, publishes a vital blog.
http://connectedness.blogspot.com/

Bruce is on to critical issues like the visualization of networked information and much more.

Sal

Some Things Change & Some Appreciate Watching

We all have heard about, participated or become curios about Social Networking issues affecting the workplace.

Organizational Networking Analysis (ONA) mapping and Value Networking Analysis (VNA) are two current tools used for understanding either the roles or the content sharing that exists between communities.

Enough time has passed with significant work and substantive data to really affect the organizational design of today's companies.

Yet, it remains to be seen who has actually approached what a Network Based Organization looks and acts like.

If you have any examples please let us know.

Sal